New Law Passed In France:ALL New Rooftops Must Be Covered With Plants Or Solar Panels

[Taojnhy]

Green roofs can look nice when done well, but I suspect it's hard to maintain the nice looking ones. A lot of the google images of green roofs I'm looking like are more like this:



Which just looks like someone has abandoned the home and let nature reclaim it. It looks pretty terrible.

Hm. I have no idea how to get my riding lawnmower up there.

[Masark]

I think that's a great idea. Would be very in favor of the same thing here.

Well, you've got experience with it.

[Adam Jensen]

I think such a thing should be encouraged, but not forced. And if forced, the government should pay for it.

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Green roofs can look nice when done well, but I suspect it's hard to maintain the nice looking ones. A lot of the google images of green roofs I'm looking like are more like this:



Which just looks like someone has abandoned the home and let nature reclaim it. It looks pretty terrible.

Nah, I think it looks a bit like a hobbit hole.

[Deleted]

Why should my opinion be greater than anyone else's? I create a conversation starter. I don't want people to skip the article and just go straight to my opinion to either support and deny. Also if this was to go further then a few pages and the conversation switches. I don't want new posters just restarting the conversation by requoting me rather than reading the thread and gaining where the thread is that way. We see that in threads all the time, 10 pages later and people are still directly quoting the OP even though we have moved on in discussion.

you dont create anything. you just copy and paste.

Why not put your opinion down to discuss and link to sources like this article.

Just copy pasting articles to start threads adds nothing and contributes nothing.


AS for the subject, its not a bad idea, but country wide can run into supply issues unless you heavily subsidise solar panel manufacture, and they are not all that green anyway.
It also tends to limit design freedom.

[Yvaelle]

I like the idea, as long as the state covers the costs, etc... Some people may not be able to afford it without help.

I think such a thing should be encouraged, but not forced. And if forced, the government should pay for it.

Unless I'm the one reading it wrong - it's not for homes - it's just things like factories, warehouses, big box stores: industrial and commercial buildings with big flat useless roofs.

[Random010203]

How many of your 21,967 posts are copy+paste articles from news websites?

At least give some of your own input or something instead of just slapping an article on off-topic.

This, so much this. I am sick to death of coming to the OT forum and seeing rehashed content from Reddit and other news sources. The hell has this community's creativity gone too?

OT: All countries should be making progressive and collective action attempts to be more sustainable. Good for France, maybe the US will catch up in fifty years.

[Osmeric]

Hm. I have no idea how to get my riding lawnmower up there.

Flying lawnmower drones incoming!

More seriously: in the US, utility-scale PV farms are becoming preferred over domestic PV. There are economies of scale that are beneficial. The US has plenty of cheap land, though.

[Poopymonster]

The end result is that someone sitting in Texas can buy their cars and drive them around in Texas. It just means Texas gets screwed out of the sales taxes.

I didn't say they were illegal in Texas, just that you can't buy one there. You are right, you gotta buy one out of state, pay appropriate taxes, then pay more to get it registered in Texas. Making it a pain in the ass for people. And the car dealers don't get any money.

[Reeve]

It sounds like an awesome idea, but I wonder about roof repair costs with the plants being on there. Sounds like a great deal of maintenance.... but maybe not.

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Nah, just throw a few goats up there.

Flying goat drones!

[Ripster42]

you dont create anything. you just copy and paste.

Why not put your opinion down to discuss and link to sources like this article.

Just copy pasting articles to start threads adds nothing and contributes nothing.


AS for the subject, its not a bad idea, but country wide can run into supply issues unless you heavily subsidise solar panel manufacture, and they are not all that green anyway.
It also tends to limit design freedom.

Why don't you just ignore his threads then? It's a completely viable option to you disliking the way he starts threads. The rest of us like how he leaves the OP clean of opinion and only contributes later. It's nice having a topic start with out a shit post as the OP.

OT: Seems like a good thing. Gives a couple of options. Mow your roof (or not) or install solar panels.

Building codes are not just for safety. It's ignorant to suggest this.

[zephid]

It's not all new roofs, it's only those in commercial zones, and the roofs only needs to be partially covered. Which means that all you need to do is put a couple of solar panels up there and you're done.

[Druover]

^ I'd vote for it in Canada too



I assumed goats were mandatory - otherwise we have to have gardeners climbing on roofs at risk of falling: better to have goat-gardeners

I particularly like the idea of a bunch of billy goats chilling on the roofs of all the skyscrapers in downtown

You guys aren't factoring in the greenhouse gas emissions from the goats in the form of methane. This will lead to more pollutants than are saved from the energy efficiency.

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OT: All countries should be making progressive and collective action attempts to be more sustainable. Good for France, maybe the US will catch up in fifty years.

I agree with what you said here, however, this is a silly attempt at doing that.

And utility's are way too cheap in the US for the incremental efficiency gain from this to come anywhere close to providing a realistic payback on the costs. Gas will be very cheap for the foreseeable future in the US, and is relatively clean to burn as well.

[nextormento]

Meh.
This should be incentivized (tax cuts, subsides etc.) rather than mandated.

Other than that, they're pretty cool. A pain to design and a significant overhead/maintenance cost; but pretty cool indeed.

[Underverse]

Seems like a good move to me. I like that they included plants. Would definitely get me a plant roof.

[Deleted]

how does that look terrible, it looks homely..

or maybe like a hobbits home

Hobbit'S home was the first thing in my mind as well. Does look like it could need some pruning, but still doesn't look bad IMO


Personally, I'm all for this law. However, there should be some financial gain for those who follow the law, like tax reduction or something. Because when push comes to shove, people will think economical rather than ecological.

[Deleted]

Why don't you just ignore his threads then? It's a completely viable option to you disliking the way he starts threads. The rest of us like how he leaves the OP clean of opinion and only contributes later. It's nice having a topic start with out a shit post as the OP.

OT: Seems like a good thing. Gives a couple of options. Mow your roof (or not) or install solar panels.

Building codes are not just for safety. It's ignorant to suggest this.

because its lame as hell. We can all sit here just linking articles, he is literally contributing nothing to the discussion. Should be bannable in my opinion.

Thats not to say the topic is not worthy of debate, but at least add something to the post....

[Belize]

I'm concerned about ants. We have barely any grass touching the house here and we have to be super careful not to leave anything around...

Imagine if the roof is literallt grass

[Hooked]

I agree with the solar panels on new construction rooftops, not new roofs. The grass on the rooftops is a terrible idea that will lead to mold and sickness when people let their buildings fall into disrepair.

My question is if every roof were black with solar panels would that cause a heat island effect?.

[Masark]

My question is if every roof were black with solar panels would that cause a heat island effect?.

It would still probably be an improvement over existing roofing (which tends to be black or dark colours), as the photoelectric is pulling energy out.

[nextormento]

My question is if every roof were black with solar panels would that cause a heat island effect?.

Heh. Depends on how you fudge the numbers.

Generally yes. Through two effects:
-the fraction of the solar radiation that the panels don't turn into energy is absorbed heating them up.
-the energy that they do produce is used somewhere else, as light, or AC, or w/e, but eventually dissipates into the city atmosphere.

Heat islands are practically unavoidable: concentrated activity raises the local temperature. But they can be mitigated, which is what these green roofs reportedly (but not quite) do. Planting a couple simple trees at the street level is known to be a better solution, though.
We've known about this effect for a couple centuries now. Some of the "solutions" (quotations because it's not always a problem) don't really lower the phenomenon: they simply change the energy budget of a city or area. That is the case of green roofs, which do little to directly combat it, but buildings with them are generally more energy efficient, thus requiring a lower energy budget, lowering in return the amount of heat dissipated after energy is consumed, etc.

But solar panels do have an effect on the energy budget. If you manage to be a net producer of energy through solar panels, and you export it elsewhere, you are effectively reducing the net effect of the solar radiation component of heat islands.

So... generally yes, but you can mess with the numbers quite a bit. Heat islands are not that much of a serious concern anyway.